What are some of the lessons from the Boston Marathon bombing? I listed four in this column on The Week online:
1. Al Qaeda is not the only threat
James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told the House Intelligence Committee the week before the Boston bombings: “The threat from al Qaeda and the potential for a massive coordinated attack on the United States may be diminished, but the jihadist movement is more diffuse… Lone wolves, domestic extremists, and jihad-inspired affiliated groups are still determined to attack Western interests.”The suspected Boston bombers turned out to be of Chechen descent. Chechen terrorists have perpetrated terrible attacks on the Russian mainland in recent years, including a 2004 school massacre that left hundreds of children dead. If you look at the timeline, the question lingers as to when Boston suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was radicalized. Was it during his 2012 trip to Russia, or by someone in the U.S.? Regardless, we don’t know what the Boston suspects’ motives were, or what cause they were fighting for. We do seem to know this, though: The Boston attack was not perpetrated by al Qaeda. It’s a reminder that the list of terrorist groups is long — and many of them are domestic.
.2. The FBI and foreign governments must do better
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.